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Notes of a Staff Officer of our 
First New Jersey Brigade on the 

SEVEN DAY'S BATTLE ON 
THE PENINSULA IN 1 8 6 2 




By E. BURD GRUBB 

Brevet Brifa^iier General U. S. Volunteers 



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Moorestown, N. J. 

MOORESTOWN PPINTING CO. 

1910. 



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Camille Baquet, Esq., 

Historian of First New Jersey Brigade, 

Elizabeth, N. J. 
Dear Sir: 

In accordance with your request I give you herewith my recol- 
lections of the Battle of Gaines' Mills. In order to give a minute 
description of this battle, it may be well to describe where the New 
Jersey Brigade started from to go into it, and how it came to be 
where it did start from. 

The Brigade had been at the village of Mechanicsville about 
three and a half miles from Richmond on the northern side of the 
Chickahominy during the latter part of the month of May. It was 
moved up from Mechanicsville about a mile and a half west up the 
Chickahominy near the Meadow Bridge, but was not on picket at 
that bridge when Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry attacked the picket of the 
United States Cavalry commanded by Captain Royal and killed a 
number of his men and desperately wounded that officer. Captain 
Royal was well known in Burlington, New Jersey, he having mar- 
ried a sister of Admiral John Howell of that city. 

The brigade was withdrawn soon after that and moved down 
the Chickahominy taking the road on top of the northern ridge and 
stopping near Dr. Gaines' house. 

On the 31st of May the brigade was under orders to move at 
a moment's notice and the Battle of Fair Oaks was in progress on 
the southern side of the ris'er. Part of it could be seen and a good 
deal of it heard. 

On the morning of the first of June the brigade moved down 
across the Chickahominy and out on the battle field of Fair 
Oaks. General Taylor informed me that we had been held in re- 
sen-e through the morning and were considered the support of the 
second line. We were not engaged because the fight was practically 



over before we reached the field, but Captain George Wood, whose 
mother lived next to my father's house in Burlington and who was 
captain in a Pennsylvania regiment, was carried by and spoke to me 
while I was sitting on my horse with General Taylor at the edge 
of the battle field. Captain Wood was shot through the leg. The 
brigade was encamped on this battle field along the eastern side of 
the road running to Richmond, having crossed on what was known 
as the Grapevine Bridge, across the Chickahominy, and while there 
I visited the Second Brigade, many of whom, particularly in the 
Fifth Regiment, came from Burlington. George Burling, after- 
wards Gen. Burling, commanded a regiment. They had had a very 
desperate fight and many of them had been killed and wounded. 
They were camped directly on the spot where they had fought, and 
for many reasons it was the most disagreeable camp I ever saw, 
dead men and dead horses having been only covered with perhaps 
six inches or a foot of earth and the stench and the flies exceeded 
anything I ever saw before or since. We remained here until the 
morning of the 27th of June. All through the afternoon of the 
26th up to nine o'clock that night there had been a heavy battle 
raging at and around Mechanicsville and the roar of the guns and 
the flashes of the shells had been very continuous. Early in the 
morning of the 27th the brigade was moved down with the rest 
of Slocum's division near the Grapevine Bridge and over the small 
hill from M'hich the north side of the Chickahominy Elver could be 
very well seen. 

It is my recollection that the tents which were of course shelter 
tents, and the knap-sacks of all the brigade, were left in the camp 
v;hen we moved out that morning and the reason I think so is be- 
cause I was in charge of the detail which buried the knap-sacks of 
the entire Fourth Regiment which were in their camp when we 
returned late on the night of the 27th after the battle. These 
knap-sacks were buried on the morning of the 28th of June, 1862, 
and while I have never been at the place since, although I have 
visited the battle field of Gaines' Mills twice, I have always thought 
that I could find this place. If the members of the Fourth Regi- 
ment have not already done so, of this I do not know. 

About eight o'clock in the morning General Taylor directed me 
to go over the river and get some idea of the topography of the 
ground upon which we would probably fight. After crossing the 
river, riding across, I went to the westward, crossing a field or 
two, and came to a barn on the top of which were some signal of- 
ficers, one of whom I knew, he being from my own regiment. He 

6 



asked me to come up on top of the barn, and I climbed up and from 
there about half a mile away through a small gap in the woods, I 
watched a solid column of the enemy passing from left to right, 
until I was sure that a very heavy body of infantry was making 
that movement,! then went to the northwestward until I came to 
our line of battle. The men were lying down along the edge of 
the pine woods and so far as I saw, there was no rifle pit or at- 
tempt of any shelter of that kind, I rode along for certainly the 
length of the entire division and got a fair idea of the lay of the 
land, and I saw a place which has considerable to do with my 
account of this battle. It was a swale or shallow ravine possibly, 
v.'here it came through the pine woods, about six feet deep and one 
hundred feet wide. On the northw'est side of it there was a peach 
orchard and high grass and from the configuration of the country, 
I judged that the swale was formed from the water wash through 
that orchard towards the Chickahominy. There was no creek or 
rivulet going through it, but there was quite a deep ditch running 
along in the fields to tlie eastward perpendicular to the direction of 
the swale. Our line of battle was not in the ditch but consid- 
erably to the westward of it, say one hundred and fifty 
yards, I do not remember v^-hat troops were there, but I think that at 
least some of them were Regulars. My reason for thinking so is 
because I spoke to and saw regular officers whom I knew. The 
line of battle v/as not extended across this swale when I sav/ it in 
the morning, nor was it in the afternoon wlien I saw it again. I 
extended my observations along the line of battle for probably a 
mile to which this swale was nearly a central point. I made careful 
observations because I could not tell where our brigade would go 
in. I made a pencil sketch of the line as it appeared to me and 
returned to General Taylor with as much information as I could 
give him together with the sketch. The swale and ditch were 
marked upon the sketch as was also the barn where the signal of- 
ficers were, and the general direction and the distance from the 
bridge head as near as I could give it. I do not know why it 
occurred to me that the course of the brigade should be to the left 
after we crossed the bridge, but it was so, and the reason I did 
think so was because I saw immediately that that was the weakest 
part of our line of battle. 

About two o'clock in the afternoon we had not yet crossed the 
bridge. It vvill be remembered that one of the names of this battle 
of Gaines' Mills, is the "noiseless battle.'' A four o'clock in the 
afternoon there were nearly sixty thousand men engaged, having 



a great number of cannon, firing an immense number of cartridges, 
(of course at that time loaded with black noisy powder) and it is 
a fact that persons within two miles of that battle never heard a 
sound of it. Ordinarily the noise of that battle would easily have 
been heard for fifty miles. 

I remember afterwards that although the smoke of the guns 
and of the musketry and the bursting of the shells in the air was 
distinctly visible to all of us ; yet there was exceedingly little or no 
noise where we were until after we crossed the bridge, although we 
were within three-quarters of a mile from where the battle was 
going on. 

I think there are only one or two occasions in the history of 
the world in which such peculiar conditions of the atmosphere ex- 
isted at the time of battle. About three o'clock one of General 
Slocum's aides came to General Taylor with orders to cross the 
bridge at once, we moved down and crossed, and were directed to 
move obliquely to the left and take position in a large field which 
was a clover field, in echelon. The battalions were closed in mass 
on the centre with intervals of one hundred and twenty paces be- 
tween the battalions. The Fourth Regiment was the left rear 
echelon ; the Third was the next ; then the Second ; then the First. 
The field was a very large one and sloped both ways, first the rise 
from the river to the top of it, then a slope towards the pine woods 
which I have spoken of on the northern side. In forming the 
echelon, all the brigade passed over the crest of the hill. As soon 
as the brigade was in this position General Taylor ordered arms in 
place rest. 

In front of us and about five hundred yards away there was 
going on a very severe battle, and many bullets came up from the 
woods and some cannon balls and shells. In a few moments the 
General sent orders to the brigade to lie down. Just as we came 
into position, a brigade which had been fighting in the woods right 
in fj'ont of us and which contained Duryea's Regiment of Zouaves 
of New York, fell back out of the woods not in very much dis- 
order, but breaking both to the right and left. Their place was 
taken by Sykes' Brigade of the regular army which passed into 
their place coming from the left and which went into position just 
about the time that our men lay down on the hill. The regulars 
took up a fight which commenced to rage again with great fury ; 
their line pressed into the woods and disappeared from our sight. 
The bullets commenced to come out of the woods and come in 
where we were in a very disagreeable manner, which I distinctly 



remember, as I sat on my horse with much more apparent coohiess 
than I really felt, alongside of the General who certainly was very 
cool. In a few moments a very great many wounded men began 
to come back from the woods, some being carried, some being as- 
sisted, and some limping back themselves; and before very long an 
aide of General Slocum's came to General Taylor and ordered him 
to put his brigade in line of battle and advance. At this moment 
an incident occurred of which I was personally cognizant and part 
of which I was an eye witness to. I may digress here for a mo- 
ment, and say that on the crest of the hill of which I liave spoken 
and which we passed, lying between the Fourth and the Third 
Regiments, was a battery of seven machine guns, the first that were 
ever tried in battle, I believe, and the only ones I think at that time 
in any army of the world. They were called the "Union Coffee 
Mill Guns" and consisted of a single rifle barrel with an arrange- 
ment like a hopper at the butt of the barrel, into which cartridges 
were put, and the turning of a crank did the rest. I have also called 
to mind the fact that at the battle of Gaines' Mills the first Nev; 
Jersey Brigade used a cartridge in which the powder and ball were 
enclosed together in some inflammable paper, it not being necessary 
to bite the cartridge but merely to put it in the rifle and ram down. 
I do not think they were ever used after the Peninsula Campaign, 
but the brigade was furnished with from sixty to eighty of these 
cartridges per man at the battle of Gaines' Mills, I think the "Union 
Coffee Mill Guns" had this same kind of a cartridge, but I am not 
sure of this. 

Sergeant Dalzell of the Third New Jersey Regiment in the 
writhings of this battle was for a time in charge of this battery 
and I think that finally all the guns were lost. The reason that I 
speak about this battery so particularly is because it was at a trial 
of these machine guns some weeks previous at which I was present, 
by General Taylor's orders, T met for the first time the two French 
officers now known as the Comte de Paris, the Bourbon Pretender 
to the throne of France, and his cousin the Duke de Chartres. 
These officers I subsequently met on several occasions when I was 
sent with messages from General Taylor to General McClellan 
while the brigade occupied the extreme right of the army above 
Mechanicsville near the Meadow Bridge. I knew them by sight 
and from introduction and they did not very much resemble each 

other. 

Immediately after General Slocum's aide had given orders to 
General Taylor to advance his brigade and before the brigade had 

9 



gotten into line of battle from the massed formation, an officer 
riding very fast and coming down the Hne from the east rode up 
to General Taylor and commenced speaking to him very rapidly in 
French (both of these officers whom I have mentioned spoke Eng- 
lish perfectly well). General Taylor neither spoke nor understood 
French, and he turned to me and said : "Who the devil is this, 
and what is he talking about?" I said to him: "This is the 
Comte de Paris serving on General McClellan's staff, and he has 
come to you by General Porter's orders under which you are to 
give him one of our regiments." General Taylor said to me. "Do 
you know him?" I said, "Yes, sir, I do." He said: "Very 
well, then give him the Fourth Regiment and go and see where he 
puts it and come back and report." These last few words saved 
me a trip to Libby Prison. We started up at once after the Fourth 
Regiment where we arrived in a few jumps of our horses. The 
French officer was a good deal excited. He was a young man 
probably about twenty-five or six years of age. I do not think that 
he said anything to me as we were riding, but I do remember that 
his horse shied at a dead man who lay in our way and very nearly 
threw him over his head. Arrived at the Fourth Regiment whose 
Colonel Simpson, a West Point officer, was just beginning to form 
his line of battle. I introduced him. Colonel Simpson spoke 
French very well and their conversation was in French. I under- 
stood it and heard him tell Col. Simpson just what I had told Gen- 
eral Taylor and he said that if Col. Simpson would get his regi- 
ment in columns of fours he would conduct him where he wanted 
to go. The regiment was put into columns of fours and went off 
to the left front with Col. Simpson, the French officer and myself 
riding at the head of it, Col. Simpson on the left of us and the 
French officer between us. We had not gone far before I saw that 
we were approaching the swale that I have spoken of before, and 
soon we arrived at it. To my great surprise there was no more 
line of battle there than there was in the morning, although there 
was a very heavy battle going on on the right on the eastern side 
of this swale. My recollection is that there was not much going 
on on the left or western side, but I cannot say that I remember 
distinctly about that. At the mouth of this swale, apparently wait- 
ing for the Fourth Regiment, was the Eleventh Pennsylvania Regi- 
ment also in columns and also apparently under the orders of this 
French officer; for as soon as the Fourth came up both regiments 
moved off together through this swale. The rest of this is soon 
told. The last I saw of the French officer and Col. Simpson and 

10 



the right of that regiment was a swarm of grey coated soldiers with 
their rifles in their hands within no more than thirty yards from 
us, and with General Taylor's words in my ears to "Come back 
and report," I lay flat down on my horse, put both spurs to him and 
did so. I rode up the line until I came to some wounded soldiers 
of the Third Regiment, and right here I saw Col. Tucker of the 
Second Regiment carried out of the woods and put on a stretcher 
and then shot dead after he was on the stretcher. I asked some 
of the Third men where General Taylor was, and they said "With 
the Third Regiment," of which regiment he had been colonel before 
he was promoted. I dismounted and tied my horse to a little mul- 
berry tree at the edge of the woods and to which tree General Tay- 
lor's' horse was also tied, and which tree is still alive, or was so 
within the last four years, as I saw it. I then went up through the 
woods about one hundred and fifty yards and came upon the line 
of battle and soon found General Taylor parading up and down 
the line like a wounded lion and in the midst of one of the most 
terrible battles I ever saw. 

As soon as I came close to him and he saw me he said : "Where 
is the Fourth?" I said: "Gone to Richmond, sir." I shall never 
forget how the old fellow's eyes glared, as with his sword in his 
hand, he turned to me and said : "Young man, this is no place 
for levity." I said: "They are captured, every man of them." 
He said: "My God, My God," and fairly wrung his hands. 

Now this is an incident of the capture of the Fourth Regiment 
as witnessed and participated in by a staff officer. The identity 
of the French officer who conducted the Fourth Regiment into the 
woods where it was lost has been a subject of question ever since. 
Colonel Simpson in his report of the battle and his capture 
mentions the name of the Duke de Charteres as having been his 
conductor. 

When I joined General Taylor he was near the left of the 
companies of the Third Regiment ; the smoke was so thick that it 
was impossible to see twenty yards. The afternoon was very hot 
and the air close, and probably the peculiar condition of the atmos- 
phere of which I have spoken had something to do with it, for I 
never saw smoke so thick in any battle as it was at Gaines' Mills. ^ 

The firing of the enemy in our front was very constant, rapid, 
and heavy, and while a good many of our men were being hit it 
appeared to me that the bullets went high and the bark and the 
chips fell off the trees over our heads. All of the men of the Third 
Regiment were lying down on the ground loading and firing from 

11 



that position and the same was true of the First and Second Regi- 
ments who were on the right of the Third. The first and only 
order that General Taylor gave me after I joined him in the woods 
was given w-ithin two or three minutes after I came up to him and 
after my report of the Fourth Regiment which I have detailed 
above. He said : "Those men are not firing at anything. It is too 
thick to see. Go to the regiments and give the order to cease firing 
and let the smoke rise." I went along the line, gave the order to 
every officer whom I saw — captains, lieutenants, and field officers. 
There were a great many of the poor fellows dead and hurt, and 
my dear cousin, Penrose Buckley, Captain of Company C, of the 
Third Regiment, with whom I had enlisted in May, 1861, was lying 
on the ground among his men, several of whom were dead and a 
number wounded, and he was pressing a bloody handkerchief to 
his left hip as I passed along. I said to him: "How is it with you. 
Penn?" and he said: "Not bad, Ned, only a buck shot in my hip." 
That is the last I ever saw of him. He was shot through the lungs 
a few minutes afterwards and lay on that spot four days in agony 
and died there. Before this last mortal wound he had a hand to 
liand encounter with two of the enemy, one of whom he killed, and 
the other shot him through the lungs. This is the testimony of John 
Stewart, Sergeant of Company C, who was lying on the ground 
beside him with his right arm shot off at the wrist, and who is still 
living at this day. After having communicated the order to fire I 
returned along the line looking for General Taylor, as I reached 
about the centre of the Third Regiment the smoke had risen from 
the ground as a curtain rolls up slowly and there was no firing on 
the part of the enemy, our men doubtless glad to be relieved from 
their cramped positions, arose from the ground, some on their knees, 
and some standing erect peering through the smoke. 

As we know now that the enemy were in the sunken road which 
passed through the woods parallel with the line of the brigade and 
where undoubtedly our line of battle should have been formed in 
the morning. This sunken road was deep enough to cover a man 
to his arm pits and therefore only the head and shoulders of the 
enemy were above the level of the ground, and the enemy was dis- 
tant only about forty-five yards when what I am speaking of oc- 
curred. I have paced the distance more than once since on that spot 
and I believe this to be accurate. 

Both General Taylor and I distinctly heard the clear order, 
"Aim," come out of the smoke at the front, and instantly the order, 
"Fire." The volley that fell upon the brigade was the most with- 

12 



ering I ever saw delivered, for the men were totally unprepared for 
it. Under that volley, the Kew Jersey Brigade broke all to pieces 
I do not know whether before this there was any break in the line 
of battle to the left of the New Jersey Brigade. History is some- 
what misty about this, but I do know that the brigade fell back in 
great disorder upon receiving this volley. 

General Taylor and several of the officers attempted to rally 
the men, but this was impossible. The General said to me: "We 
must get in front of them. Where's my horse?" It happened that 
I knew where his horse was for I had tied my own beast to the 
same mulberry tree and he was no more than fifty or sixty yards 
from where we'were. James Morrow, of Company C, Third Regi- 
ment, who is still living, helped me to find these horses, and directly 
at the edge of the woods and right in the midst of the retiring 
brigade Gen. Taylor ordered me to get in front of the men, which 
would be to the rear, for he was coming back to rally them. We 
had gone but a few steps when we came to a ditch which I have 
spoken of previously and my horse, which was the black stallion 
so well known to our brigade, cleared the ditch easily at one bound. 
Gen. Taylor's horse balked just on the edge of it and Gen. Taylor 
very nearly went over his head. Seeing that the horse would not 
leap, I dismounted, went through the ditch and then led him up 
on the other side, upon which Gen. Taylor put spurs to his horse 
and galloped off swinging his sword and calling to his men to rally. 

One of the curious incidents of my life happened just here 
My horse was very much excited by the noise and confusion, and 
just as I put one foot in the stirrup he swung around so that I had 
great difficulty in getting the other leg up, finally I did so and was 
just starting to rejoin Gen. Taylor when a very tall and handsome 
young man came to me, and put his hand on the pommel of my 
saddle, he had in his other hand a National Regimental color. The 
lower part of his face and his chest was covered with blood. He 
said to me : "I am hit so hard that I don't think I can go any 
further, so I turn this over to you." I took the colors, put my 
horse to full run, went through the crowd of retreating men and 
found Gen. Taylor, who was forming a line about a quarter of a 
mile in the rear of where we had been fighting, and found a small 
patch of the Second Regiment, which was the nucleus around which 
that Regiment was rallying, and gave the colors to them. 

The curious part of this matter is that I do not remember that 
I ever had occasion to mention this incident in public until the 
year 1888, when I was Department Commander of the G. A. R. in 

13 



New Jersey, and at a Camp Fire in Freehold in the Opera House 
before a very large audience and an attentive'one, I related it. Upon 
stating just as I have now, and saying that I turned those colors 
over finally to the rallying regiment, a tall, white-haired man with 
a long, drooping white moustache rising from the centre of the 
audience said : "That is exactly true, I am the man, and here is 
the wound," and drawing aside his moustache he showed that his 
lips had been almost entirely cut off which was the wound of which 
I have spoken and he was the color bearer of our Second Regiment, 
who had turned the colors over to me at the Battle of Gaines' Mills. 
An account of this curious incident was published in the Freehold 
papers the following day. 

As the brigade retreated from the woods we saw a melancholy 
sight of our guns of the artillery of our division being captured, and 
we also had a glimpse of the rushing to and fro of a small body of 
cavalry which is known to be Rush's Lancers, Sixth Pennsylvania 
Cavalry. Twenty-one of those guns were lost right there, and I 
wish to say that our brigade was not at any time placed in support 
of these guns directly. 

The last I saw of the Union Coffee Mills guns they were in a 
mass together in a little rise of the ground about two hundred yards 
back of our line and this was when we were retreating. I have 
always understood here that Sergeant Dalzell, who was the color 
bearer of the Third Regiment, was with these guns at that time 

After returning the colors to a group of the Second Regiment 
which was the nucleus of the new line and which line was forming 
very rapidly, for the men were not running away in a panic at all, 
and after Gen. Taylor got in front of them and called them to rally, 
they did rally and at once. It was then getting quite dusk and on 
the right of our brigade there came up a brigade from the direction 
of the Chickahominy and this I found to be Gen. jVIeagher's Irish 
Brigade. This brigade went into position of the right of our line, 
and I want to say that our line vvas formed before that brigade came 
up, and of this I am positive. 

While our line was forming, men came in from the front and 
took position, regardless of what regiment they belonged and in 
that line there were a great many men of other regiments besides 
the Jersey Regiments. Gen. Taylor told me to go to the left and 
help anybody form the line down to the river, and this I did. As- 
sisting several general officers whose names I did not know, and 
about dark there was quite a good line formed. The left of which 
extended almost to the river if not quite there. There were a few 

14 



pieces of artillery in this' line on the left and some few cavalry. 
The enemy came out of the woods immediately after the brigade 
retreated through the woods, a very solid, good formation, but after 
taking the guns which I have spoken of, for some extraordinary 
reason they did not come on any farther, and why I have never 
been able to ascertain from any account of this battle that I have 
ever read. There was no military reason that any one can see why 
a charge by the enemy along the line, or at any part of it, after 
Gen. Porter's line of battle was broken should not have been entirely 
and absolutely successful. 

There is no question that our brigade and others would 
have fought on that last line, but I think that it would have been a 
forlorn hope. The battle was totally lost and every man knew it. 

The enemy did not advance, and after dark the troops com- 
menced to retire across the bridges in our rear. These bridges were 
small, frail things not much wider than four men could march 

abreast. 

In the rear of the entire left of the new line of which I spoke, 
there was only one of them. The orders to withdraw our brigade 
came to General Taylor about quarter of nine o'clock. The enemy 
had been firing slowly with artillery and undoubtedly endeavoring 
to strike the bridges and many of their shot came close to the 
bridge heads, but I do not think that any of them struck the bridge 

itself. 

Just at nine o'clock as the Third Regiment was going over 
the bridge and the General and myself were riding with it, just be- 
fore we came to the bridge head Lieutenant Howell of Company I, 
of the Third Regiment, who was one of my dearest personal friends, 
came out of the ranks and shook hands with me saying how glad 
he was that we were both alive. He walked a few paces and 
turned there to say something else to me or to some of his com- 
pany, and a round shot that was fired by the enemy's gun struck 
him' full in the breast and literally tore him to pieces. 

The brigade crossed the bridge and returned to its camp which 
they left in "the morning not far from the Fair Oaks battlefield 
which it reached about ten o'clock that night. This was one of the 
most sorrowful nights that I ever remember. We had lost a great 
battle, which every man and officer knew should never have been 
fought in that way, and at that place, and every one of us lost dear 
friends and companions and what was worse their mangled bodies 
were at the tender mercy of the enemy. Only a few wounded men 
escaped and what few we did get away were taken to the field hos- 

15 



pital at Savage Station and fell into the hands of the enemy there, 
'ihis battle was a stupendous military error from beginning to end. 
History shows now and our military leaders should have known 
then, that, after the battle of Mechanicsville, the day before, in 
Vvhich the enemy suffered severe repulse, the right wing of our 
army should have been withdrawn that night to the south of the 
Chickahominy River, and under no circumstances should have been 
allowed to wait, in that false position in which they met the fierce 
assault of the forty thousand fresh troops of Stonewall Jackson, 
who was then coming through the valley, and was known to be 
coming, and who struck us hard in the place where we were without 
entrenchments and without support, on the afternoon of the 27th 
of June. Any one who reads history cannot fail to see that Gen- 
eral McClellan's fatal mistake in his Chickahominy campaign was 
that he did not advance with his whole force on Richmond after 
he had practically won the battle of Fair Oaks. 

The next morning the sorrow^ful duty of burying the knap- 
sacks of the Fourth Regiment to which I have alluded, was per- 
formed, and I was detailed to see that this was done, and I did so 
and I think I can find the place, although I have never tried to. 
The next day the brigade moved to Savage Station and after a short 
halt moved on towards White Oak Swamp. During this halt at 
Savage Station many of us visited the field hospitals in which were 
the wounded whom we had been able to bring from the Gaines' 
Mills tight, and inuuy wounded men who had been in that battle were in 
tents scattered around the ground of the station house, and here I 
paid a last farewell to many a dear friend, among them Lieutenant 
\Vm. Evans of Company B of the Third Regiment, one of the most 
devoted friends of my life, who was shot through the upper part 
of the left lung and died within twenty- four hours after we left 
him. I pushed into his jacket as I said good-bye, all the money 1 
had, not more than six or seven dollars except one silver ten cent 
piece, and this also I parted with near Malvern Hill as I shall re- 
late. 

When the brigade reached the first bridge from the White Oak 
Swamp it was halted and General Taylor was told by an aid of 
General Slocum's that we were to be the rear division of the army, 
and that he must keep himself in touch w^ith Division Headquarters 
wherever they were. This order caused me to ride a great many 
miles, for I had two horses and they were both kept pretty busy. 
As we reached the bridge head, of course it was a very small bridge, 
there was a very heavy cannonade ajDparently across our front about 

16 



half a mile away. I was sent to see what it was and found that 
the enemy had opened a battery or several batteries on a pack of 
our wagons which had in some way become exposed to them. The 
hill country was covered thickly with trees and underbrush. There 
were very few clearings and scarcely any high ground, and it was 
very difficult to see what was going on. I could see, however, that 
there was a great panic among the teamsters and that the wagons 
were being deserted, and the wagoners riding off on the mules and 
horses of the teams. Presently our line of skirmishers appeared 
facing the southwest and at that time the head of our column was 
iiciiij^- the cast, ^o the position was very much mixed. The skir- 
mishers advanced towards the Rebel batteries vei-y rapidly, and 
while I was looking on the batteries withdrew. I went back and 
reported to General Taylor and drew a diagram of what I had 
seen and gave it to him, and told him I was utterly unable to un- 
derstand the positions, but that these were facts. An aid of Gen- 
eral Slocum's came up with orders to cross the bridge and turn 
sharply to the right which would cause us to march about due south. 
This we did for probably a mile or more and then came to a fairly 
good bridge across White Oak Creek and this the brigade crossed. 
After crossing, the creek here ran through a ravine the sides of 
which were c[uite precipitous, the road down to the bridge on one 
side and up on the other being very steep. An aid of General Slo- 
cum's told General Taylor that our brigade was now the rear of 
the army, that there was a piece of our artillery on the north side 
of the creek, that he expected General Taylor to look after it when 
the pickets and skirmishers were withdrawn. After awhile, prob- 
ably half an hour, some of the pickets commenced to come across 
the bridge, aud having nothing to do I thought I would go acr ss the 
bridge and see where that piece of artillery was. I found it on 
top of the hill about five hundred yards from the bridge in good 
position commanding the road. The officer in charge was a lieu- 
tenant of Williston's battery whom I knew very well. He asked 
me if I had any orders for him, when I said no, he said he would 
like to have an order. 

So after a little while I went back to the brigade. The pickets 
and skirmishers weve coming across the bridge and after a while 
a few of our cavalry came across and after that the pioneers com- 
menced to destroy th bridge by hewing through the timbers. We 
were lying down and resting on the top of the hill on the south side 
of the ravine when I saw the pioneers commence to cut the bridge 
to pieces. I said to General Taylor: "Why that gun is over on 

17 



the other side." He said, *'Ho\v do you know it is?" I said: 
"Why I saw it half an hour ago." He used a very strong expres- 
sion, pulHng his moustache and told me to tell our lieutenant to 
"get out of that as quick as the Lord would let him." So I ran 
down and stopped the men from cutting the bridge, ran up the 
other side and told the officer of the gun what the general had said. 
They were all ready and sitting on their horses but had had no or- 
der to move. The enemy's skirmishers who were coming on had 
fired several shots at them, and I must say that I never saw a gun 
go down a hill more rapidly than that did. To make a long story 
short they got the gun over all right, and the enemy's skirmishers 
shot at our pioneers while they were cutting the bridge. This was 
a curious, but as it turned out, a very fortunate occurrence, for 
history shows that these were Stonewall Jackson's men, and that 
Jackson with a heavy force was behind them. They reported that 
this bridge was htld strongly with artillery and infantry, and this 
report made such an impression upon Jackson that he did not at- 
tempt to force the passage of the creek at that place. Why he did 
not cross the creek at a fort about a mile further up of which he 
should have known, historians on both sides have never discovered ; 
but that Jackson's delay on that occasion, at that spot and his count- 
er march gave McClellan the opportunity to withdraw his armies 
successfully to Malvern Hill, is the opinion of all authorities whom 
I have read upon the subject. 

This was about two o'clock in the afternoon, it must be remem- 
bered that this was when the days were long and also very hot. 
In half an hour we received orders to march and move south along 
the White Oak road towards Charles City crossroads. After 
marching about two miles we were halted and the men were directed 
to rest along the east side of the road which was well wooded on 
the east side, and on the west side were several quite large clear- 
ings. I am sure that General Taylor was not informed that we 
were occupying the line of battle, and I am sure that General Tor- 
bert, who was then colonel of the First Regiment, did not know 
this until several years after, but it is a fact that we were a part 
of the line and an exceedingly important part. While we were 
lying down along the edge of the road an aid of General Slocum's 
rode by and told General Taylor that General Slocum's headquar- 
ters were in the field on the left or east side of the road about five 
hundred yards ahead of us, and that was all he said to him, for 
I heard it, and he then rode away. In about fifteen minutes the 
enemy opened with about sixty pieces of artillery, firing across 

18 



the road in front of us and gradually increasing the rapidity of the 
firing until it was the most tremendous cannonade I had ever heard. 
No enemy was visible to us anywhere, the smoke of those guns came 
over the edge of the woods probably eight hundred yards from the 
road, and a few hundred yards further along the right of the 
brigade. None of those shells came across where we were. While 
the cannonade was at its height, and of course such a cannonade 
as this is always the precursor of a charge of a line of battle, Gen- 
eral Taylor said that he must have some orders from General Slo- 
cum's headquarters as he did not know what was wanted of him, 
so he said: "Grubb, ride to General Slocum's headquarters and 
ask him what he wants me to do.'' I had then one of the most 
terrible experiences that I ever had under artillery fire, and what 
is more, I had two of them, for I rode down that road across that 
line of firing, and I think I came nearer being killed by the flying 
pieces of fence rails and pieces of trees than by the shells. I found 
the oak tree, but I did not find General Slocum, and I came back to 
General Taylor, really very much bewildered by the terrible fire, 
and told him that General Slocum was not where he said. He 
merely said: "Go back and find him." And I had to do what I 
should have done, of course, at first. It must be remembered that 
I was only a little over nineteen years of age. I finally did find 
General Slocum more than half a mile from where I was told he 
would be, and a very heavy infantry fight going on in front of him. 
I told him what General Taylor had said. He did not even look at 
me but simply said: "When I want him I will let him know." 
Which I had the pleasure of repeating to General Taylor word for 
word. The last .time I came down the road the cannonade had al- 
most died out, and the infantry fighting about opposite to where 
I had seen General Slocum was very severe. The corps engaged, 
it turned out, was the Third Corps and the division on its left which 
was of course next to our right because we were right in front in 
column and had been marching south when we halted, was General 
Phil. Kearney's division and commanded by General Phil. Kearney 
in person. Now it will be seen that our brigade being in column of 
four right in front under the old tactics to have formed a line of 
battle the order would have been given front, and all the men would 
have turned to the left which would have brought their backs to 
the enemy, as the enemy was on our right or west side. To have 
formed the line of battle we would have had to have faced by the 
rear rank, and while that did not make much difference in merely 
forming the line, only so far as the file closers were concerned, any 

19 



subsequent manoeuvers from that formation would become exceed- 
ingly complicated ; and I doubt whether any of the regiments of 
the First Brigade at that time could have successfully performed 
those manoeuvers. These were some of the difficulties which the 
Upton's tactics subsequently adopted, aimed to obviate and did so. 

General Kearney w^as the idol and hero of our brigade from 
the time we first saw him. He and all his staff were well known 
to every man and officer of us; and when Captain Moore of Kear- 
ney's staff came riding down the road waving his hat and calling 
out that General Kearney had lost a battery, and wanted the Jersey 
Brigade to help him get it back, it seemed to me that the whole 
brigade heard him because I am sure that no orders were given 
to do that which occurred, and I had barely time to scramble on my 
horse and join in the rushing throng. General Taylor called to 
me as I passed him : "Keep ahead of them and keep them from 
going too far. The enemy's line is in the woods right in front of 
our guns." Captain Moore, who was talking to him, had probably 
told him this. The guns that had been captured were not more 
than three hundred yards from us, a little advanced to the west of 
the road. I had noticed that they were not gone when I passed 
along on my ride to General Slocum's but the melee was so con- 
fused that I have not and never had a very clear idea of it. When 
I got to where the guns were the road was somewhat sunken and 
as the bank was so steep that I could not ride my horse up, I jumped 
off and scrambled up. There were a good many men among the 
guns before I got there, and the guns were being re-captured. But 
I do know that when I passed near a gun, a sergeant of the First 
Regiment, whose name was either Hollins or Holljster, had a Rebel 
prisoner by the neck. The man, though captured, had not sur- 
rendered, and as I passed him in carrying out the order which I 
had, to stop the men from going beyond the guns, he thrust at 
our sergeant with his bayonet, missed him, and gave me a prod, 
the scar of which I carry to this day. Though it did not disable 
me then or now, as it was on the inside of the thigh. I passed 
the order to halt to several of the officers of our brigade. It is 
my impression that there were lots of Kearney's men from his own 
division who were there almost instantly; but I do not think they 
were there when we first came up. 

I expected that we would receive a withering volley from the 
woods which were only across a small field in which the General 
had told me the enemy would be. For some blessed reason that 
volley never came ; and in a few minutes our men were re-called 

20 



to the road and continued our march, and towards night fall we 
went into line of battle along the side of the road not more than 
twenty yards from the road side. On the west side our skirmish- 
ers were thrown out perhaps fifty yards more and we engaged with 
the Rebel skirmishers until dark. There was a good deal of artil- 
lery firing along the roads which intersected the road on which 
we were marching; but most of the shots went through the tree tops 
and only a few of our men were injured. The line we were hold- 
ing and which we held there from dark until twelve o'clock that 
night was the gap in the line into which the enemy had charged 
and captured Major General McCall and a large part of his division. 

About nine o'clock that night I, having been constantly en- 
gaged under General Taylor's orders, in passing along our skir- 
misher line and getting reports from the officers, came up to where 
the General was in a fence corner, and found him utterly exhausted. 
Neither he nor I had had any nourishment, except a cup of coffee 
for breakfast, since the night before and that coffee had been given 
to us by some of the men of our headquarters. The wagon with 
all our rations was with the train and we did not see it for thirty- 
six hours afterwards. 

I said to him : "General, the brigade is very much mixed up 
and ought to be straightened out." He said: "Very veil, sir, go 
straighten it out." And so I went, but I had not gone more than 
twenty steps before I came to the conclusion that that was too 
much of a contract for a young man of my age, so I went to Col- 
onel Torbert of the First Regiment and stated the case, just what 
the General had said, and that I believed that General Taylor was 
entirely exhausted, and that the job was too big for me. He said : 
"Never mind, sonny, I will fix it up for you." So we went to- 
gether and Colonel Torbert arranged the brigade that night. Some 
of the companies of the Second were mixed up with the Third, and 
some of the Third were mixed up with the First until we straight- 
ened them out. The men were lying down, some of them asleep, 
all of them cross, and it was no easy job to shift them around, but 
we finally got it done about eleven o'clock. I got back to my old 
colored man, James Huggs, who had a blanket for me in the same 
fence corner w'here the General was, and I had about two hours' 
sound sleep. A little before one o'clock an aid of General Slo- 
cum's gave us marching orders. We found an entire brigade in 
the road ready to take our places, and passing through them to the 
road we continued our march in column going somewhere, we did 
not know where, but headed, we all knew, towards the James 

21 



River on the way from Richmond. This last fact was heart- 
breaking to the men, for from the moment that we landed at West 
Point in May our faces had been towards the Rebel Capitol. Al- 
though the battle of Gaines' Mills had been lost just the day after 
we were much nearer Richmond than we were now and it was only 
the night of the battle of Charles City crossroads that our men 
realized that we were reireating. We marched until about seven 
o'clock in the morning and then the brigade was given about three 
hours' rest along the road. The General and I had some coffee 
which the men of the Provost Guard gave us and I went down 
into my old Company C, of the Third Regiment, and got from 
Richard Poole, a private in that company, who was a painter in 
Burlington, three hard tack, and after he had given them to me, 
just one-half of all he had, I searched in my pocket and found the 
silver ten cent piece, that was the last thing I had. Richard re- 
fused to accept this in exchange for the hard tack, but I finally 
pressed it upon him as a souvenir, and he showed it to me many 
times afterwards. About twelve o'clock the brigade was assem- 
bled and marched along the road towards Malvern Hill which we 
did not then know by that name or any other name, but it was a 
high and commanding position and we saw a great many of our 
batteries already in position upon it, and very readily came to the 
conclusion that our army was going to make a stand there. I 
think the Jersey Brigade was at that time in the rear guard, and 
the reason I think so is because after our brigade passed through 
the pickets which were at the edge of the hill nothing came behind 
us but some cavalry, and I have a good reason to remember that. 
W^ithin about a half a mile of the hill on the left hand side of the 
road was a fine farm and near the fence were two fine cherry trees 
full of cherries. As we passed along, the General and myself being 
in the rear of the brigade, he said : "I would like to have some of 
those very much." So I immediately said : "I will get you some." 
T got over the fence and climbed up a tree dropping my sword and 
belt in the clover at the foot of the tree as I went up, I broke ofif 
a good many branches and proceeded to fill myself as quickly as 
possible. A scouting party of some of our cavalry came by going 
toward the hill and an ofificer told the General that there were some 
Rebel scouts not very far behind him, upon which the General re- 
called me from the tree, and we proceeded to rejoin the brigade 
which had gone up Malvern Hill. When the brigade was halted and 
arranged upon the line which had been assigned to us near the top 
of the hill, I instantly noticed that I had not my sword and belt and 

22 



remembered that they were in the grass at the foot of the cherry 
tree a half a mile outside of our lines. I asked the General for 
permission to go back and get them and he proceeded to read me 
a lecture on carelessness. Saying, among other things, which I dis- 
tinctly remember and always have, that "A soldier should lose his 
head rather than his sword." So I went back to the picket line and 
very fortunately for me 1 happened to know the captain very well 
who commanded a ca\alry troop that was on picket on that spot, 
that is to say, near the base of the hill. He said to me that he had 
not seen any Rebel scouts for half an hour and that he would send 
two of his men with me to get the sword which he did, and we all 
got ba'^k safely without seeing anybody, and the cavalry also got a 
lot of rhen-ies. I mention this incident so particularly, because it 
has a very particular bearing upon a very extraordinary occurrence 
that happened that night. There was an immense park of our 
wagons not very far from the hill the night before the battle of 
J^Iaivern Hill, and while the brigade was on the hill in line of 
battle and sleeping behind the breast works which they had made 
of logs and earth, a very flimsy sort of breast works, but which by 
reason of the admirable position on the hill would have been very 
effective if assaulted, General Taylor received an order informing 
him that the wagon trains of the army would be burnt that night, 
and he, accompanied by some others and my old servant, James 
Huggs, went down into the wagon park and took out a small quan- 
tity of their personal belongings, among other things a small hand 
bag of mine containng some underclothing, my mother's letters, and 
a few other things of that kind. I did not go with them as I was 
asleep at the root of a tree, and when the order came the General 
cold my man he did not wish to disturb me. I saw the printed 
order the next morning. It was in the same form and apparently 
the same type as that which we received from the headquarters of 
the Army of the Potomac. General Taylor returned to where he 
had placed his headquarters under a great white pine tree, and my 
old servant, James Huggs, sat at the camp fire, for, although it had 
been a hot day, the nights were cool and the fire was lighted. Huggs 
says that about eleven o'clock while the General was walking up 
and down between the tree and the fire, the orderly on duty came 
up to the General and said that a messenger from General McClel- 
lan's headquarters wanted to see him outside of the rifle pit, and 
Huggs says that the General walked straight down that way, he, 
of course, not going with him. The next morning at grey day 
light, I awoke with the most intense gnawing hunger that I had 

23 



ever experienced in my life. I had had nothing to eat but three 
hard tack, two cups of coffee, and some cherries for two days, and 
I had ridden probably fifty miles in those two days. I had, more- 
over, been in a pretty severe fight and had an ugly wound in my 
leg wdiich hurt me every instant I sat in the saddle. As soon as I 
sat up and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes I saw within about 
twenty-five yards of me a small pig rooting along on the ground, 
I also saw right close to me a rifle of the orderly's leaning against 
the tree, it being the custom then for an orderly merely to have the 
ram rod in his hand while he was on duty. I knew there was a 
positive order against the discharge of any firearm without permis- 
sion, but I was very hungry and there was the pig, so I took de- 
liberate and careful aim, and killed that pig dead. Simultaneously 
with the crack of the rifle came the voice of General Taylor: "If 
you had missed him, sir, I would have put you under arrest." He 
was standing on the other side of the tree and had not lain down 
all night. The pig was cooked and eaten at once. The battle of 
Malvern Hill which took place that day was a magnificent pageant 
for those of our brigade who could see it. The coming down of 
a great mass of the enemy on the open plain to their utter destruc- 
tion by the awful artillery fire. It was indeed a cruel and bloody 
sight, but after it was all over, many of us felt that we were 
avenged for what had happened at Gaines' Mills. 

Those of us who can remember can even see today in our 
mind's eye, knapsack, hats, and even bodies of men thrown up in 
the air by the explosions of our shells in the serried masses of the 
enemy. Our brigade was not engaged at all, some men were hit 
by spent shots and bits of shells, but I think our casualties were 
twenty-eight in all. During the day on more than one occasion my 
attention was called to the fact that General Taylor was not wear- 
ing his own sword, but the sword that he was wearing belonged 
to his son. Captain Taylor, who had been partially disabled in the 
battle of Gaines' Mills. I noticed this because the two swords were 
not alike at all, and moreover, because I had been the object of a 
lesson on carelessness the previous afternoon, but of course I did 
not say anything. 

The morning after the battle of Malvern Hill our brigade 
marched into a great wheat field at Brandon, near Harrison's Land- 
ing, and went into camp in the mud. As soon as the wagons were 
up and our tents were pitched, General Taylor directed me to mount 
my horse and accompany him. We went straight down to the 
James River and up along the river bank until we came to Berkley 

24 



Mansion, which was General McClellan's headquarters. We had 
an orderly with us and both dismounted and left our horses with 
the orderly. I accompanied the General into the house and upstairs 
to the second floor. There were a number of wounded men in the 
house lying on the floors, and the house was crowded with officers 
of all grades. General Taylor went into a room on the second 
floor which I afterwards found was General IMcClellan's private 
headquarters and in a few minutes came out and said to me. "I 
shall be here for some time, you may make yourself comfortable, 
and when I want you I will call you." So I went out of the house, 
for it was indeed a grewsome place. It was raining hard, and 
after telling the orderly to spread an oil cloth blanket, which I had, 
over my horse, I looked around for a place to make myself com- 
fortable, and found a chicken coop with some bright dry straw on 
the floor (there were no chickens in it) so I lay down and went to 
sleep. In about an hour an orderly called me. The General was 
standing on the porch, mounting our horses we rode off towards 
camp, I riding, of course, a horse's length behind the General. After 
going about two or three hundred yards, he checked his horse and 
said: "Ride up along side of me." Which I did. He then said : 
"Did you notice that I did not have my svv^ord when I went to Gen- 
eral McClellan's headquarters?" I said : "I did, sir, I noticed that 
you had neither sword nor belt." He said : "You see I have got 
them now." I said : "I do, sir." He said : "Well, I got them at 
General McClellan's headquarters." He said: "Last night while 
you were asleep an orderly told me that a messenger from General 
McClellan wanted to see me outside the rifle pit, I vv'ent there and 
two men on gray horses met me, one of whom was dismounted. 
This man presented a pistol at my head and instantly demanded my 
sword. Believing that I was captured and a prisoner there Vv^as 
nothing else for me to do but give him my sword which I did. 
Upon taking it he immediately mounted his horse and rode off." 

That is all that General Taylor ever told me on the subject, 
and it is all I know about it. (I may add that General McClellan's 
body guard always rode gray horses). The fact is that this oc- 
curred, on my word as a gentleman and a soldier, exactly as I 
have stated it. 

As the brigade was marching in to the great vvheat field at 
Berkley where the army was then commencing to encamp, sud- 
denly and without any idea that the enemy w^as in the vicinity, sev- 
eral shells came in and exploded among the wagon trains which 
were in the road along side of which our men were marching. My 



recollection is that not more than a dozen shells came. A re;jiment 
of Zouaves, which I think were the 55th of New York, went back in 
double-quick, and I understood captured two guns which the enemy 
had run up close to our encampment without any supports what- 
ever. The official records will show the circumstances of this. I re- 
member that one of the shells exploded within a few feet of General 
Taylor's horse. 

Some incidents of interest occurred during our encampment 
at Malvern Hill. It was hot and uncomfortable and sorrowful, for 
there were many deaths and bands playing the Dead March v/ere 
continually heard through the day. Deaths from sickness and 
many wounded. 

One night, a few nights after we encamped, we were roused 
at midnight by a very lively cannonade from the opposite side of 
the river. Our camp was about a cjuarter of a mile back from the 
ri\'er, the long roll was beaten throughout the army and the brigade 
turned out and stood in line. I do not think there were any cas- 
ualties in the brigade though there were some in our division from 
its shells. One man I remember as Dr. Oakley asked me to go and 
see a man in the field hospital who had his entire stomach carried 
away by shells and lived four days afterwards. This wound is re- 
ported among the curiosities of the war. I saw the man twice and 
strange to say, he appeared to be suffering no pain except through 
hunger. 

A few days after our arrival at the Camp, President Lincoln 
came down and reviewed the army. I presume by reason of the 
small space in which it was necessary to hold it each brigade was 
drawn up on the northern side of its own camp in double columns, 
closed en masse, and the field officers were dismounted. My cloth- 
ing, all except the one suit which I had during the seven days' 
battle, had been lost and it happened that the only coat I had v/as 
a short jacket coming to the waist, and the only trousers I had wert^ 
those which I had worn since the 27th of June. My saddle had 
been hit twice with pieces of shell, once while I was in it and once 
when I was not. It was not torn much but the screws were all loos- 
ened in it and one of them had worked up and from day to day had 
torn my trousers to such an extent that I can only say they were 
not fit to appear in review ; so upon seeing my condition General 
Taylor excused me from going in the review and I sat in the door 
of my tent next to General Taylor's and within a few feet of it. 
President Lincoln rode a large bay horse and was dressed in a black 
frock coat and a high silk hat and rode at the head of the cavalcade 

2'i 



with General McClellan and his stajff of probably a hundred officers 
immediately behind him. They passed down from east to west 
along the front of the army, the President taking off his hat as he 
passed the colors of each brigade. When they arrived in front of 
our brigade they haked and General Taylor and the President came 
up to General Taylor's tent, no others were with them. The Presi- 
dent dismounted and my servant, James Huggs, who is still living, 
brought camp stools and they sat down under the fly of General 
Taylor's tent; it seems that the President wanted a drink of water, 
the day being very hot. James Huggs went to the spring a few 
yards away and got some water and the President drank heartily 
of it ; as he got up to go away he saw me standing in the position 
of a soldier facing him at my tent door and he said to General 
Taylor : ^1 suppose this is one of your staff, I hope that he has not 
been wounded?" General Taylor called me to them and told him 
that I was Captain Grubb on his staff, and told one or two very 
pleasant things about me to the President which caused ^^my 
cheeks to tingle and then taking me by the shoulder, he said : "He 
would have been in the review but his clothes were not good enough 
to allow him." President Lincoln put his hand on my shoulder, I 
shall never forget the kind expression of his magnificent eyes, as 
he looked me in the face and said : "My son, I think your country 
can afford to give you a new pair of breeches." As these were the 
only words that President Lincoln ever said to me they impressed 
themselves very deeply on my mind. I have never forgotten tliem 
and never shall. 

The rest of our stay at Harrison's Landing is filled with un- 
pleasant memories for me. I had contracted typhoid fever al- 
though I did not know it and tried to fight it off, and did so until the 
morning the brigade marched from Harrison's Landing when in 
the wind and dust of that morning I mounted my brown stallion 
with great difficulty, fell over the other side of him into the dust 
and the next thing I remember was awaking up in New York 
Harbor in the hospital ship some ten days afterwards with two 
Sisters of Mercy taking care of me and my old servant, James 
Huggs, standing at the foot of the bed. He had hired a colored 
man Vhom he found and helped him carry me down to the water's 
edge and succeeded in getting me on board the hospital ship 
"Spaulding" in a little dug out canoe, for the anchor of that ship 
had been raised and she was the last hospital ship to leave filled 
with sick and wounded. 

I did not know that the brigade had been most dreadfully cut 



up and General Taylor killed at the Bull' Run Bridge until after 
I had been sent from the hospital ship to my father's house in Bur- 
lington, where I found a letter from Colonel Torbert commanding 
the brigade and asking me to serve on his staff. I joined the brig- 
ade just before the Crampton's Pass battle (and my account of that 
which I delivered at a reunion of the brigade at my place, Edge- 
water Park, printed at their recjuest I herewith enclose). 

We saw the battle of Antietam and were under a terrible artil- 
lery fire but we were in the reserve and I am sure that I need only 
say that it was the opinion of every man and officer in our brigade 
that if the Sixth Corps had been thrown forward that afternoon 
over the Burnside bridge after Burnside crossed it and placed across 
the right flank of the Confederate army, which were all there lying 
in the wheat field opposite us, the result of that battle would have 
been far different from what it was. 

After Antietam we marched to Bakersville and encamped there 
and were there joined by the Twenty-third New Jersey Regiment, 
into which I was promoted as Major a few days before the battle of 
Fredericksburg. (And I would suggest that as the history of that 
regiment which, of course, is part of the history of the brigade, has 
been carefully collected and printed by the Regimental Association 
of the Twenty-third Regiment, and that regiment was in that brig- 
ade until the expiration of its term of service in June, 1863, and in 
battle with the brigade in the battles of Fredericksburg and Salem 
Church, that that printed history be received as part of the history 
of the brigade.) 

E. BURD GRUBB. 




28 



of t\^t OIi|tri S^gtntJ^nt 



The surgeon of the 3rd New Jersey Regiment was appointed 
by Governor Olden about ten days after the regiment arrived in 
Camp Olden. His name was Lorenzo Louis Cox, he was a man 
about twenty-five years of age. He had a fine appearance, well 
educated and an excellent surgeon. He was a grandson of Air. 
Redmond Cox of Philadelphia, a member of a well known family. 
Redmond Cox was an intimate friend of my father, but my father 
had nothing whatever to do with the appointment of Dr. Cox, and 
did not know of it until after it was made. 

After the battle of Bull Run, and during the early autumn the 
Third Eeghnent was engaged in erecting Fort \Yortli, one of the 
defences of Washington, about a mile west of Alexandria Semi- 
nary. Probably the uncovering of so much fresh earth which had 
to be done in erecting the Fort, which was quite a large one, caused 
an outbreak of malarial fever, most of it ordinary chills and fever. 
The sick call was sounded at half -past six every morning and a 
very large proportion of the regiment filed up to Dr. Cox's tent 
and received a drink of whiskey and some quinine pills. Those of 
the Third Regiment who read this will probably remember two 
very ridiculous occurences in this connection. Dr. Cox had an 
Irishman who was a private in one of the companies and he was his 
assistant. The Doctor had a barrel of whiskey in his tent from 
which he served the rations every morning; he noticed that this 
whiskey became exhausted more rapidly than in his opinion it 
should, he therefore poured into the whiskey barrel a very large 
quantity of quinine, and the consequence was that the next morning 
his man Patrick was so drunk that he had to be taken down to the 
creek to be soused to bring him to, and he could not hear for two 
or three days. 

The other occurrence was that one morning on guard mount 
the Adjutant, whose name was Fairliegh, (an Englishman and the 

29 



youngest son of Lord Fairliegh), appeared on his horse, which was 
a light bay and which had been striped with white paint on the 
ribs during the night and every hair on his tail shaved off. It 
transpired at the regimental court-martial that Dr. Cox's Patrick 
was very largely responsible for the damage to the Adjutant's 
horse. During the months of August and September and also 
during the whole winter of 1861-1862 the First New Jersey Brig- 
ade picketed in front of their lines, and during August and Septem- 
ber these pickets were not very far from and in front of Alexan- 
dria, not more than three miles at the utmost. The enemy's pick- 
ets w^ere very close to ours and a number of skirmishes along the 
Little River turn pike and the corn fields adjacent thereto occurred. 
Gradually our picket lines were advanced until, about the latter 
part of September, we took in Mrs. Fitzhugh's plantation and pick- 
eted almost up to Annandale. Dr. Cox and his assistant were out 
along the picket lines almost every afternoon. Many of the men 
would be ailing and there was an occasional gun-shot wound that 
would have to be looked after. Dr. Cox rode a very handsome 
cream-colored mule, and Patrick had an army horse, Patrick carried 
the knap-sack of medical stores and surgical instruments strapped 
on his back. One afternoon Dr. Cox, who had visited Mrs. Fitz- 
hugh's plantation several times, and it was at that time a little out- 
side of our picket lines, started to go there again, when he was 
pounced upon by six of the Louden scouts. Confederate Cavalry, 
and, although he tried to make his mule run away from them he 
could not do so and was captured, Patrick jumped off his horse and 
ran into the woods and succeeded in getting back into our lines 
with his medical knap-sack. He reported Dr. Cox killed as there 
had been several pistol shots fired, Cox was not armed. On the 
evening of the next day. Dr. Cox returned to the camp of the Third 
Regiment and reported the facts about as I have related them here 
to Colonel Taylor, and also to all of the officers of the regiment 
who were his friends and who were interested in the occurrence. 
Ke told us that he had been taken to Mannassas Junction and had 
been for some time in the tent of General Joseph E. Johnson, the 
commander of the Rebel Army that then faced us. Everybody 
was glad of his release which was of course because of his being 
a non-combattant. He resumed his duties and I do not remember 
that the incident was spoken of again in the regiment until the fol- 
lowing very curious occurrence took place. 

When the army advanced on Mannassas Junction in March, 
1862, the Third New Jersey Regiment was in the extreme front. 

30 



The skirmishers of that regiment captured a train of cars loaded 
with provisions, and were also the first in the Rebel encampment 
at Maunassas. Some of the members of the regiment entered Gen- 
eral Joseph E. Johnson's tent, which had been evacuated so sud- 
denly that a number of his papers and his military sash were left 
which these men obtained. They naturally examined the papers 
and were surprised to find a report taken down by a member of 
General Johnson's staff of the conversation had with Dr. Cox of 
the Third New Jersey Volunteers. This report stated that Dr. 
Cox had given General Johnson all the information regarding the 
troops at and around Alexandria that he desired and that he Cox 
had particularly stated the number of men which General Mont- 
gomery commanded at Alexandria. Fortunately for Cox, the aid 
stated this number at 10,000, which was what Cox did say, and 
which was twice as many as Montgomery had. These papers were 
forwarded to Washington, whether through the headquarters of 
the regiment or not, I do not know, but a few days after that a 
squad of the United States Cavalry came to the Third Regiment 
and the officer in command arrested Dr. Cox and took him to Wash- 
ington where he was immediately incarcerated in the old Capitol 
Prison. He remained there for a very considerable time, my im- 
pression is for several months. I wrote to my father in regard to 
this and he went to Washington and had an interview with Edward 
M. Stanton who was then Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton had been 
my father's counsel before the war in Lancaster and was an inti- 
mate friend of his. He had great trouble to get Mr. Stanton to 
take the matter up at all, but when he finally did. Cox was found 
to be innocent, but foolish. He returned to the regiment but only 
for a few days. The men, and a number of the officers would not 
receive him, and he resigned and took a position as surgeon of one 
of the Pacific Mail Steamers in which position he contracted the 
chargres fever and died. The occurrence was a very sad one. 
: Cox was entirely innocent. He was a perfectly loyal and true 
man. He was one of the very best surgeons in the army at that 
time and almost certainly would have had a brilliant career. His 
military life was cut short, and probably his actual life also from 
having talked too much. He told me himself, that, in the inter- 
view in General Johnson's tent he had purposely given him all the 
false information that he could think of, and that he had pur- 
posely stated Montgomery's troops to be twice their actual strength. 
The correspondence in regard to this will be found in the of- 
ficial record, see general index, page 211, Lewis L. Cox 13845. 

31 



I have read the correspondence, but the volume in which it 
is, I do not now find in my collection. 

E. BuRD Grubb. 

I was First Lieutenant of Co. D, 3d N. J. V^ols., and Aide de 
Camp on the staff of Brig. General George W'. Taylor, First New 
Jersey Brigade, during this campaign. 

E. BuRD Grubb. 




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